Five days after the end of the electoral process in our
country, after several public appearances, I am here once again before you, to
reiterate that we have found innumerable proof of the disgusting monstrosity
with which they are stealing the presidency of the republic from our people of
Honduras.

Our position is unwavering and unceasing: while they don’t
allow us access to the system of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, we will not
accept the results emitted by that Electoral Tribunal.

We do not recognize the legitimacy of any government that is
the product of this shameful assault. We will demonstrate that triumph of LIBRE
was the will of the Honduran people with its votes on November 24th.
And this triumph is being stolen by those who have turned the electoral system
into a farce, by falsifying voting records and adulterating electoral results.

We demand, together with our people, that they allow us to
look over the 16,135 original records where the will of the people was
expressed. And for those that show inconsistencies in the recording, we demand
public scrutiny of every one of those polling places.

I denounce that this government, that this group that is
governing the country, has no respect for the institutions of Honduras. They
know that they have stolen the will of the people and right now they ignore our
position and are trying to use force to install a regime that came from fraud,
to continue sustaining the brutal violence, the intimidation, the violation of
human rights and the continual and unyielding action of the system that
impoverishes our people in order to subdue and manipulate them.

They have everything. The power to bully us, attack us and
to persecute our people. But they will never make us give up our dignity!

Sisters and brothers, let us peacefully take to the streets
that we came from!

Chants: To the
streets! To the streets! To the streets!

We are going to defend our triumph in every one of the
communities where we know the people are awaiting us. To see that they respect
every vote. Every will that was expressed at the polls.

I swear, I swear for my kids, that I will not rest until I
see a Honduras that is free, sovereign, independent.

Chanting: Xiomara!
Xiomara! Xiomara!

We are going to make a reality of the dream of Morazán.
Resistance and re-foundation. Here, in the presence of all of you, I ask the
party, to launch all of the necessary actions to defend the will of each and
every Honduran. In defense also of our candidates for mayor and congress.

All of this, within the parameters of morality, of respect,
of the rights of others, and of the policy of non-violence that rules in our
party, to continue this struggle, that should not end until this international
nightmare that oppresses us, sustained by evil sons of this land who do not
deserve to live here, has come to its end.

To our people, to the youth, to the teachers, to the
workers, to the businesspeople, home-makers, women and men, I call on all of us
to defend our proposal to create a homeland, a democratic state instead of this
oligarchic state that oppresses us and that today seeks to subjugate us through
this monstrous fraud.

I ask you, let us stand up and place ourselves immediately
at the disposition of the orders that will come from our leaders and our
general coordinators. To those who are against freedom and against the people’s
sovereignty, I tell you that this struggle has just begun! They will never be
able to defeat our people, we are stronger than ever because we are organized
in more than 20,000 collectives nationally. With the consciousness and the
conviction to work through this great network of information and communication
to guarantee that not one of these actions of fraud are not reported.

Chants: Long live
Xiomara! The people, united, will never be defeated!

For the memory of those who gave their lives for a better
world that is still possible, I swear before you, that we will not cede even
for an instant until we carry out our historic mission of defending our people,
with our morals, in every battlefield necessary. We will never stop struggling!
We will never forget the atrocious crimes of those who kill our people with
hunger every day so that they never, and be completely clear, they will never
be able to kill our hopes.

We will defeat them in the streets, we already beat them at
the polls. Until the final victory! Thank you very much.

The following is an English translation by La Voz de los de Abajo of the official communiqué read by the LIBRE party at the November 29th, 2013 press conference in Tegucigalpa. The original speech in Spanish is available in two parts online: part 1 / part 2Lo que sigue es una traducción al inglés por La Voz de los de Abajo del comunicado oficial de LIBRE leído en la conferencia de prensa del 29 de noviembre, 2013 en Tegucigalpa. Se puede ver la versión original en línea en dos partes: parte 1 / parte 2

PARTY FOR FREEDOM AND
RE-FOUNDATION: “LIBRE”

EXECUTIVE REPORT ABOUT
THE 2013 GENERAL ELECTIONS PROCESS

1.THE RESULTS CONTAINED IN THE RECORDS OF
THE RECEIVING ELECTORAL TABLES (MER) WERE ALTERED AND FALSIFIED IN THEIR SUMS IN
THE OFFICIAL BULLETINS EMITED BY THE SUPREME ELECTORAL TRIBUNAL (TSE).

2.THE SUMMARY OF THE RESULTS PUBLISHED BY
THE TSE DOES NOT COINCIDE IN THOUSANDS OF CASES WITH THE PHYSICAL COPIES OF THE
RECORDS

3.WE ASK FOR THE COMPARISON AND RECOUNT OF
THE 16,135 ORIGINAL RECORDS FROM THE CLOSE OF THE PRESIDENTIAL VOTING, AS
PROVIDED FOR IN THE ELECTORAL LAW ARTICLE 15, NUMBER 12.

4.IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE WARNINGS IN THE
REPORT FROM THE INTERNTIONAL AUDIT BY THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES, WE
CALL FOR A POST-ELECTION AUDIT OF THE ENTIRE SYSTEM OF TRANSMISSION (SIEDE).

5.WE ASK FOR REPORTS ABOUT THE ELECTORAL
DOCUMENT CALLED THE ‘CREDENTIAL’ FROM THE POLITICAL PARTIES WHO, ACCORDING TO
THE TRIBUNAL’S OWN FIGURES, RECEIVED FROM THE SUPREME ELECTORAL TRIBUNAL MORE
THAN 160,000 CREDENTIALS YET ONLY RECEIVED 17,516 VOTES AT THE PRESIDENTIAL
LEVEL, MAKING IT A FALLACY THAT MER IS MADE UP OF ALL THE POLITICAL PARTIES.

The
FREEDOM AND REFOUNDATION PARTY (LIBRE) does not accept nor recognize the
official preliminary results published by the Supreme Electoral Tribunal, due
to the series of alterations, falsifications and irregularities reflected
through the Transmission System SIEDE.

I-EVIDENCE OF ALTERATION DURING SCANNING
AND ADDING OF RESULTS OF MER RECORDS

i.After comparing 14,593 MER records that
the LIBRE party received physically at our data center to the records published
in the SIEDE system (last consulted at 11:00pm Thursday November 28th,
2013) we found:

a.82,301 too many votes counted in favor of
the National Party

b.55,720 votes not counted for LIBRE.

c.34,184 votes not counted for PAC.

d.29,063 votes not counted for the Liberal
Party.

e.13,307 votes not counted for other
parties.

ii.Numerous MER records were scanned in the
morning hours of November 24th, according to the report that appears
on the ATX (Scanner Center), vertically in lowercase.

iii.Numerous records transmitted by the TSE
to the political parties and those published on the web page do not coincide
with the originals received by LIBRE’s members of the MER, in terms of the
signatures, which confirms the alterations.

iv.Numerous records published by the TSE
coincide with the characteristics of those transmitted during the simulations.

v.Numerous Certified Records of the
Municipal Electoral Tribunals were scanned or entered into the System, showing
it TURNED OUT TO BE FALSE that the
scanners were programmed to only transmit the Final Records of the Receiving
Electoral Tables (MER) and that for security purposes no other electoral
document could be transmitted. Supposedly each MER record would have a bar code
that guaranteed it could only be transmitted by the ATX scanner assigned to the
corresponding MER.

II-VOTING OF ABOUT 70% at 12% OF THE MER.

It was found that at 12% of
the polls there is an inflation of results, since the average voting in each
MER is 61% and in this block of polls the voting is over 70% and the count at 85%
of these MER’s favored the National Party candidate, an indication that necessitates
comparison of the electoral registry with voters in order to discard the votes
of those who have moved or died.

III-RECORDS NOT TRANSMITTED TO THE POLITICAL
PARTIES, NOT PUBLISHED BY THE TSE AND WITH A SUMMARY OF RESULTS OF 0. (Out of
14,593).

At least 2,805 MER records were not transmitted to the political parties nor
published on the TSE webpage, within this category are also included the
records whose “summary of results” appears as 0 and those sent for Special
Scrutiny (2,134 records).

The
International Audit carried out by the Organization of American States OAS established
on the 20th of November, three days before the elections, that: “The
process/functioning evaluated in accordance with the Operative Plan: special
scrutiny does not meet requirements due to inability to evaluate.”

These records represent an electoral
volume of 883,140 voters, mostly distributed amongst the departments of Cortes,
Francisco Morazán, Santa Barbara and Yoro. The projection of these figures
would give LIBRE the victory in the elections.

IV-160,000 MER CREDENTIALS WERE GIVEN BY THE
TSE TO 5 PARTIES; FAPER, UD, DC, ALIANZA PATRIOTICA AND PINU-SD.

In accordance with the law,
the Receiving Electoral Tables (MER) are made up of a principal and replacement
member proposed by each of the political parties through their representatives.
The total number of MER’s in the 2013 electoral process was 16,135, meaning
that each party received credentials for that number of both principal and replacement
MER members.

Up to today, November 29th,
the count by the TSE indicates that amongst them all, these 5 parties obtained
17,516 presidential votes, a fact that proves that the credentials that they
signed for were given to members of other parties. On average, at 68% of the
MER’s the parties PINU, DC, FAPER, UD and Alianza Patriótica do not have a
single vote.

V-REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL AUDIT TO THE
TRANSMISSION SYSTEM (SIEDE) BY THE OAS AND PRESENTED TO THE TSE ON NOVEMBER 20TH,
2013.

This report contains
conclusions in terms of security and general conclusions with regards to
quality and transparency. It can be found on the OAS page and there it shows
the vulnerability of the system and the lack of security and the lack of
guarantees in the transmission and publishing of results in addition to the
counting. Amongst them is established:

i.“The security analysis of the distinct
elements of the SIEDE has shown that the current System as of the date of this
report presents certain deficiencies of adequate implementation of security
measures that in carrying out these types of projects should be considered as
the minimum standards for guaranteeing the integrity of the system.”

ii.“Quality- In relation to the evaluation
of the quality of the SIEDE, it is necessary to mention that the absence of
manuals of requirements and procedures constitutes an impediment for the
analysis of the project based in metrics of compliance with standards. In the
same way, it is necessary to clarify that the findings of the audit have been
established based on evaluations up to the present date concluding the current
Report, which means that the system could present improvement in the remaining
days before carrying out the electoral process.”

“Relating to the consolidation,
integration and publishing of the results, the auditing was able to observe
problems in the design of the systems and algorithms applied that could affect
their operations in the absence of corrective measures. Dues to this being an
area that affects the transparency of the System, it is a critical element since it could affect the quality of the entire
SIEDE.

iii.“In relation to the module of
consolidation, integration and publishing of the results, the audit detected
faults that showed non-compliance with quality standards required for this type
of programs. It is important to emphasize that aspects such as correction,
reliability and efficiency have not been met by these modules up to the
finalizing of the simulations”.

iv.“As far as the publishing of the results,
the audit was able to show design problems that forced a redesign of the
application. For that reason up until the present date, it has not been
possible to carry out an analysis of vulnerabilities since there is not a
definitive version of the program.”

VI-VULNERABILITY OF THE SYSTEM

On an internet page (recovered
November 26th, 2011), are published a series of code sequences in the postgreSQI language, which drives the database used by the SIEDE of the TSE to generate
the structure for the database, tables, fields, etc. which constitute a
fundamental part of the general structure of SIEDE. In the leaked code, you can
see the information regarding three tables: votes, details, candidates and
votes, their fields, and the detail of the relationships and keys for each one.
It is important to note that at the end there is a query showing a search for a candidate with the parameter "Mauricio" and it shows the list of figures (id, first last name) of candidates with the first name “Mauricio," thereby
indicating that whoever uploaded this page to the web had access to the
database registry and not just to the structure.

VII-DECLARATIONS AND REPORTS FROM
INTERNATIONAL ACCOMPANIERS AND OBSERVERS

Judge
Baltasar Garzón. “There
were clear indications of manipulation and electoral fraud in last Sunday’s elections
in Honduras. The reach is not determined but there was buying of votes, buying
of credentials, clear influence and attempts to manipulate the electronic count
and the transmission of records,” declared the Spanish ex-judge during a visit
to Paraguay. In Honduras, Garzón was part of an observation mission of the International
Human Rights Federation made up of 11 people from Canada, the United States, Spain,
Colombia, Sweden and Belgium. “We all unanimously verified that there were
clear indications of electoral manipulation and fraud.”

Carter
Center. The delegation
was headed by two members of the Friends of the Inter-American Democratic
Charter, the ex-Presidents Carlos Mesa of Bolivia and Martín Torrijos of Panamá
along with Dr. Jennifer McCoy, director of the Americas Program for the Carter
Center. In the press release the delegation expresses that “Vote tallying
continues. A number of parties have questioned one or more aspects of the
process. The delegation believes that it is very important that the
parties make their complaints known to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal in
accordance with the procedures established by electoral law. It trusts
that the Tribunal will resolve these challenges based on the established
norms.”

Mission
of the European Union.
The European Union Mission observes that 30% of the electoral census is not
real. Here is the corresponding part in their preliminary report. “Based on the
Civil Registry and generated together by the National Registry of People and the
TSE, the electoral census has significant problems that constitute a weakness
of the electoral process. There has been no systematic attempt to fix it and
generally it allows that about 30% of its entries correspond to people who have
emigrated or died, while in a smaller number of cases there are citizens who,
though living, have been excluded as dead. In other occasions, there have been
discoveries of unsolicited address changes. While the first cases come from
administrative failures, the accusations of fraudulent address changes were
persistent throughout the electoral period and the European Union Electoral
Observation Mission observers registered credible accusations of that type in
which the National or Liberal Parties were always implicated.”

Today, Leo Gabriel, Austrian
journalist and anthropologist and member of the European Union delegation said
that based on the fraud he observed, it seems that “the European Union prefers
a stable dictatorship to a democracy.”

The
Juan Bosch Foundation titles
their report, “Elections in Honduras: No to another electoral slaughter in
Latin America.” They say, “Among the things we will see in the current report
are: a) Manipulation of the media; b) repression and intimidation of
international observers and accompaniers, c) Vulnerability of the Honduran
electoral system and the lack of guarantees for a transparent and
equitable competition amongst candidates; d) Multiple anomalies during the
electoral process such as the buying of votes and the trafficking of credentials;
e) Serious anomalies in the process of public scrutiny; f) Unjustified
withholding of 19% of the records retained by the TSE and sent to special
scrutiny without explanation; g) Declaration of 1,000 records won by the LIBRE
party as having inconsistencies; h) Lack of resolution of 611 voting centers to
transmit the results of 983 electoral tables; i) Replacement and adulteration
of the real records; j) Scanning of around 1,800 records that never made it to
the Supreme Electoral Tribunal.” The report concludes saying, “Unfortunately,
the only conclusions one can arrive at after observing and accompanying the Honduran electoral process
are negative. What we were able to observe and verify is a fragile, vulnerable
process lacking a system of consequences for the diverse situations of
irregularity and anomaly that we have exposed. If this is not rectified in
accordance with the essential values of democracy and respect for popular
sovereignty, we are headed down the
slippery slope to what Juan Bosch called the “electoral slaughter” referring to the electoral
processes lived through in the Dominican Republic after 1966, following the
coup d’état in 1963 and the U.S. occupation of 1965-1966. We were also able to
clearly see TSE partiality towards the National Party, ignoring multiple
demands, complaints and denunciations by the LIBRE party and PAC.”

VIII-CONCLUSIONS

i.To proceed to the revision and
verification, record by record, incorporated to the system, comparing the
summary of the results and physical records of every one of the 16,135
Receiving Electoral Tables at the presidential level and with the presence of
the LIBRE party, thereby processing 100% of the records in accordance with the
law.

ii.To proceed immediately to audit the SIEDE
system through an international post-electoral audit to verify its
vulnerabilities, the alterations and the falsifications of electoral documents
and their results.

iii.To ask for reports about the Electoral
Document called “Credential,” more than 160,000 to those political parties who
didn’t reach in the polls even the number of credentials given to them by the
TSE. Since the credential is an electoral document to accredit the main member
and replacement from each political party, if the political party did not
receive as many votes as people it accredited, it implies that it shared that
public document, received under its responsibility, with members of other
political parties. Therefore, it is an oft-repeated fallacy that the MER is
made up of all of the political parties.

iv.That the Public Ministry through the
Special Prosecutor for Electoral Crimes move to open a file for an
investigation of all of the alterations and falsifications produced in the
process, thereby threatening the will of the people.

v.Finally, we present on the screen, just
one example of MER 11,256 from the Department of Islas de la Bahía, Voting
Center Escuela Marco Aurelio Soto, Municipality of Jose Santos Guardiola, town
of Jose Santos Guardiola. This MER is the one that is on the page of the
Supreme Electoral Tribunal. And the next one is the original that arrived to
the party with all of the signatures of the members of the MER. This is
evidence of the irregularities and the falsifications committed by the system.

Friday, November 29, 2013

After 5 days of tension and anger over the election results and whitewashing of the election irregularities by some international entities such as the European Union and the U.S. Embassy in Honduras, the LIBRE party presidential candidate Xiomara Castro Zelaya and other LIBRE party officials and activists held a press conference to announce the party’s analysis and plan of action. The room was packed with press and a large number of Libre activists and candidates. For days there had been much debate and speculation over what path the LIBRE Party will take.

Xiomara Castro Zelaya took the stage with Juan Baharona, Julieta Handel and other Libre officials and candidates. She announced that without a recount and audit of all the tallies (actas) they do not accept the results from the TSE and will not recognize any government as legitimate that results from those false election results. “To the streets” “We will defend peacefully in the streets what we have won” ” We will win in the streets and we defeated them at the ballot box!

” We have shown that the victory of LIBRE is the people’s will through their votes and it is being stolen by those who have made the electoral system into a farce..” “Those who kill everyday with hunger, cannot kill our hopes!”

These declarations came after a detailed presentation that included the summary of LIBRE’s own analysis and comparison of TSE data, and original poll summary sheets, with specific examples of inconsistencies and outright, obvious fraud. The report also talked about the data and reports of vote buying, fraudulent buying of credentials for poll judges especially by the National Party, errors in the information on the voter rolls that kept some citizens from voting and facilitated fraud in other cases.

Today at about 11:30 pm. Leo Gabriel, an anthropologist and member of the European Union’s Honduran Electoral monitoring team gave a press conference at the airport as the mission was leaving Honduras. Gabriel dissented strongly from the preliminary report issued by the EU which classified the elections as transparent and the fact that the delegates were simply asked to turn in their observation sheets and then the report was issued without consultation with them. Asked to characterize the elections Gabriel replied “Tramposas” which in Spanish means cheating or fraudulent.

The EU delegate spoke for more than 20 minutes, describing numerous examples of observed fraud and irregularities. He also spoke about the problems with the scanning and tabulation of the tally sheets (Actas) by the TSE and stated that he did not have faith in the TSE and its results.

After careful consideration of our own observations of the electoral
process in Honduras we find the presidential elections to be
inconsistent with democratic principles and rife with fraudulent
practices.

We are not surprised that the LIBRE party rejected the preliminary projections of the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE).

The context in which these elections occurred is extremely
important. Honduras is a country of about 8.2 million people, the vast
majority of whom live in abject poverty. Underemployment currently
affects 57% of the economically active population. There are 4
billionaires in this impoverished country who own virtually all major
commercial interests, including almost all the mass media. Honduras is
also referred to by many as a “narco-state”, meaning most politicians
and military leaders are closely aligned with drug traffickers who use
Honduras as their primary trans-shipment point for cocaine from South
America. These people also have tremendous financial resources. It is
also important to note that the TSE of Honduras is comprised of members
of the National and Liberal parties (the two parties who have shared
power in Honduras for the last one hundred years) but not the LIBRE
party and therefore cannot be considered neutral or impartial. In
addition, there are no limits to electoral spending by political parties
this favours those parties with large financial resources.

It is against these overwhelming powerful interests and tremendous
obstacles that the opposition or resistance movement of Honduras has
struggled for many years, and especially in the past 4 years since the
military coup. The LIBRE party was born out of this struggle.
In visiting various voting centers in and around Tegucigalpa we
witnessed evidence to support their claims of electoral irregularities.
In numerous locations we bore witness to the open contempt aimed at
opposition parties by electoral officials at the voting centers. The
Party LIBRE, in particular, was denounced as being politically naive
and, in addition, a threat to democracy.

At the municipality of Ojojona we were met by an official who
identified himself as being in charge of the voting centre, despite the
fact that his ID card indicated he was only a “vocale”, a support person
at one of the voting tables. This official described himself as a US
citizen and former navy seal with considerable land holdings in the
area. He proclaimed his disdain for the LIBRE party stating, “we don’t
want those commies here”. He went on to publicly express his “strong
support” for the ruling National party. His conduct was visibly approved
and condoned by the military police, present at the voting center.

At a nearby voting station in Santa Ana, security forces demanded
details of our identification in an open attempt at intimidation
regardless of the fact of our official status which was openly
displayed. There were several complaints from voters shared with our
delegation of attempts to purchase votes; there were complaints that the
National party was doing this at numerous polling stations. In the
community of El Aguacatal there was no “custodio” or person in charge of
the voting center; a soldier had taken his place. In Surco de Cana
there was no cellphone signal, and the custodio in charge did not know
how to send the voting results which normally would be electronically
transmitted to the central TSE office.
Observers from our delegation were concerned when visiting a polling
station in La Joya, a barrio in Tegucigalpa where voters complained that
serious infractions of voting rights had occurred. Members of the
National party, it was claimed, were permitted entrance to the voting
rooms while members of other parties had been loudly and publicly
prohibited. At this particular polling station our accredited observers
were harassed by TSE officials, supported by military personal, who
demanded we refrain from observing ballot counting, which is a critical
part of our obligations to ensure electoral fraud does not take
place.

In the days leading up to the elections, there were numerous reports
of intimidation by Honduran security forces. Masked men with guns
presumed to be military police surrounded LIBRE party headquarters on
John F Kennedy Boulevard for one hour, two days before the elections,
and members of our delegation were present and observed the fear and
anger of LIBRE party members. On the night of November 23 Maria Amparo
Pineda Eduarte, a peasant Leader of Cooperativa el Carbón a member of
the Central Nacional de Trabajadores del Campo (CNTC), and president of a
polling station for the LIBRE party in Cantarranas was assassinated
along with Julio Ramón Araujo Maradiaga after leaving a polling station
training. Many other such incidents have been documented elsewhere.

We urge the Canadian government not to recognize the results of the
Honduran elections. There must be an opportunity to do a full,
transparent, accurate count, and fully investigate the many reports of
irregularities, intimidation and threats by authorities.

Preliminary Report of the Delegation of Honduras Solidarity Network regarding the Honduran Elections of 2013
November 26, 2013
Tegucigalpa, Honduras

This report is a preliminary summary of observations based
on the accounts from the US-based Honduras Solidarity Network / Alliance
for Global Justice election observation delegation. The HSN/AGJ
delegation was comprised of 166 International Accompaniers accredited
and trained through the Honduran Supreme Electoral Tribunal. Our
election observation delegates were organized into two zones, one in
Tegucigalpa and one in the North with a presence in Progreso, Copan,
Colon, Ocotopeque, Lempira, and Santa Barbara. This is our initial
public statement regarding the work in the northern zone where we
observed at least 100 voting tables (MER).

Our goal was to accompany the people of Honduras in their electoral
process as they seek social justice in their country. We have been clear
that our limited presence – and the presence of election observers in
general – cannot guarantee that a fair election would be held. The
elections took place within a context where international and Honduran
human rights groups have expressed alarm at conditions that could
prevent the possibility of fair and free elections. We are concerned by
the violence and harassment against the political opposition, human
rights defenders, small farmers and indigenous communities.

First of all, without exception, our delegates observed a grand
number of Hondurans going to the polls and participating in good faith
in the electoral process. In many polling places, workers from all
parties cooperated in a peaceful and orderly casting of ballots. It was
reassuring to witness the level of commitment to the election as an
expression of the popular will. However, this heartening manifestation
of Honduras’s possibilities was overshadowed by violence, intimidation
and outright fraud, all of which went almost completely unreported in
the Honduran and international media. Despite the public availability of
this information early on Election Day, we are left baffled by the
deafening silence of international observer groups and also the U.S.
Embassy regarding the following events and their obvious and explicit
impacts upon the electoral results.

Vote buying – Many of our delegates were simply shocked to
see party representatives overtly reward voting Hondurans with cash
amounts between L100-L500. This practice was so wide spread that we were
able to document it in a half dozen forms. The most common form
witnessed, however, was taking a photo of one’s own ballot and
presumably sending it, or showing it to the responsible party official.
More than a couple voters failed to turn off their camera flashes and
drew undue attention to themselves while in the voting booth.

We observed that MERs tables were often comprised of people
from different parties than the one they represented on the MMERs. In
one occasion, at table #15261, MMERs members voted to disqualify another
member because she publicly announced that she would vote for a
candidate different from the party she was representing at the MMER. As
of the writing of this report, the Acta for table #15261 still remains
to be entered in the TSE count.

Violent Acts and Intimidation

On the eve of the election, Maria Amparo Pineda Eduarte and
Julio Ramon Araujo Maradiaga from Cantarranas, Francisco Morazan were
ambushed by masked gunmen as they returned from an electoral worker
training. Both had reported to police that they had received repeated
death threats, but these were consistently unattended.

In the city of Lempira in the department of Gracias a Dios,
five people were killed, the media calling it narco-trafficking
violence. This violence happened in the morning of Election Day. The
authorities closed the polling station thereafter, largely disrupting
the people’s access to polls.

Our delegates received testimony from two poll workers
outside a polling station in Santa Rosa who were assaulted and their
MMERs credentials were stolen.

50 MER workers were held captive by armed, masked men in a
hotel in Paraiso, Copan until 9:00AM, ostensibly with the goal of
preventing their integration into the MMERs tables. Our observers
recorded first person interviews with two of these workers. In the
middle of the interview, the workers received an anonymous phone call
saying, “You’re still in town? You better leave.”

State intimidation of Election Observers/Accompaniers

During the week before the election, a group of our
delegates was temporarily blocked from visiting a group of campesinos
who have been the victims of extreme political violence and repression
in their opposition to the Agua Zarca Project. HSN/AGJ delegates were
ominously told by a group of employees from the DESA Corporation that if
they passed the road block, they would “never leave” the area.
Unimpeded by these threats, delegates nervously continued on foot to
their destination, where they spent the night.

Our delegations in Progreso were subjected to a raid by
Honduran immigration agents when we had just been given a official
electoral observation training by TSE Trainers. During the raid, our
delegates were subjected to harassment and some were threatened with
deportation. The raid not only sent a shock through our delegate corps,
but also delayed our schedule so that we were forced to skip important
aspects of our training schedule.

We were not the only delegation to suffer this type of
repressive action. Groups from Germany, El Salvador, Brazil also
reported harassment by immigration agents, despite having been
accredited by the TSE, and their immigration papers in order.

The aforementioned observations made by HSN delegates were
made in good faith by people who voluntarily served as witnesses to the
entire electoral process. Given the extensive list of threats and
violence before and during the election, and given the hourly
revelations of discrepancies in the data on the vote tallies (Acts), and
considering the fact that 20% of the votes are held by the TSE, the
Honduras Solidarity Network cannot and will not in good conscience join
in the rubber stamp endorsement of the results as they have been
announced by the TSE.

We continue to stand with the Honduran people in defense of their
human rights and of their struggle to build a Honduras that provides a
better life for everyone.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people in Honduras face several
challenges: one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, a
murder rate that is the highest in the world, brutal opposition by the
Catholic and Protestant churches and their allies in the government.

The United States is far from blameless in this situation. In this short film, LGBT Honduran leader Pepe Palacios explains why.

Filmed by Andy Thayer as part of the Honduran Equality Delegation,
the first LGBTI-focused solidarity delegation to visit Honduras. Andy is
a co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network, a multi-issue LGBTI direct
action group

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) delegation of 17 credentialed
international observers seriously question the validity of the Supreme
Electoral Tribunal’s (TSE) preliminary results of Sunday’s national
elections in Honduras.

The NLG takes issue with the United States government’s
characterization of the electoral process as transparent, given the
country's recent and pervasive human rights violations: “U.S. government
officials should refrain from assessing the validity of the election at
this early stage and instead insist on protecting the rights of
Honduran civil society,” NLG President Azadeh Shahshahani stated. The
U.S. has been widely criticized for its early and nearly unilateral
endorsement of the 2009 post-coup election, which took place during a
period of brutal repression reminiscent of the violence of the 1980s.

NLG observers expressed alarm about consolidation of power over the
electoral process by the National Party, which has controlled the
judiciary, the military, and the Congress since the 2009 military coup.
Militarization of the electoral process included soldiers patrolling
each polling center and allegedly transporting ballots.

Additional irregularities were observed throughout the country,
including allegations that smaller parties’ credentials were sold to
National Party supporters for a seat at the voting tables (a TSE
official has verified this). This threatens the integrity of the
election process as individuals staffing the voting tables were in
charge of counting ballots at the end of the day. There were also
reports of the distribution of gratuities to National Party supporters.
The NLG also documented inconsistencies with voter rolls and vote
tabulations.

Two opposition parties, LIBRE and PAC, have called into question
the transmission of vote counts to the electoral tribunal. They claim a
substantial discrepancy between the numbers reported to the TSE and
those reported to their parties.

The NLG noted a strong will and enthusiasm among Hondurans to
participate in the electoral process despite a pervasive climate of fear
and intimidation surrounding opposition party members and observers.
Over the weekend, two LIBRE party activists were murdered, while two
other deaths and three injuries were reported near a voting center in
the Moskitia region. In addition, international observers reported
multiple incidents of intimidation by state actors in the days leading
up to the elections.

Get Email Updates - Reciba noticias por correo electrónico

News Sources / Fuentes de Noticias

Radio Progreso has radio updates (Spanish only) directly from the from the front-lines of the resistance in Honduras.

Une TV is one of the only independent national TV stations in Honduras

Rights Action has been doing good reporting and commentary as events unfold and has people on the ground monitoring the situation. They are also a reliable vehicle through which to get money to the organizations fighting for the restoration of democracy in Honduras.

Defensores en línea is the best (Spanish-only) online source for regularly updated information on the violation of human rights in Honduras.

Spanish - website of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras about the struggle of the Garifuna people and other resistance and environmental struggles.

School of the Americas Watch has good background information on the coup-plotters training at the Georgia-based School of the Americas / (also known as the School of Assasins) as well as news updates on the coup and a call to action.